Unemployment in India Doubles in Past Two Years – Report

Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has conducted a recent survey on Unemployment in India. The study reveals that the rate of unemployment has risen to 6.9% in October, which has been the highest in past two years.

The report has further projected that the ‘Labour Participation Rate’ (LPR) fell to less than half to 42.4% since January 2016. LPR is the measure of the proportion of the adults who are willing to work. CMIE pointed out that the LPR has fallen sharply after Demonetisation which happened exactly two years ago in November 2016. The percentage of participation of adults in work force fell from 47-48% in 2016 to about 42.4% currently. CMIE also said that the effects of demonetisation on the employment segment has still not recovered.

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The month of September indicated some positive movement upward however, October once again proved that the improvisation in labour statistics were short lived and deterioration in labour markets have been continuing as earlier.

TOI Report Data

If we analyse the estimated number of people employed in October 2017 Vs October 2018, the study proves a drastic fall in numbers from 407 million to 397 million respectively. This results in a fall by 2.4%. Also, such a sharp decline in job rate, especially in the month of October is what makes the employment market more worrisome.

Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO, CIEL HR Services, commented that October-December are traditionally peak months when employment generation happens, preparing for the onset of next financial year. Taking cue from the CMIE report figures, Mishra said that the count of unemployed persons looking for jobs had almost doubled from July 2017 to October 2018. Adding further, he said that there are approximately 12 million people who enter the job market every year, and it is a failure on part of government that job creation has not been robust enough to support these demand numbers.

He concluded that the IT sector too has failed to create any jobs in this lull period clubbed with the disappointing performance of the core sectors of Power and Infrastructure.

The above report numbers have been published in TOI dated 09th Nov, 2018